Variables affecting obedience

• Identify the 3 variables found to affect obedience.


  Proximity, location and uniform. 
• Outline research into variables affecting obedience.

  Milgram varied the distance between the experimenter and the participant by instructing the experimenter to leave the room and give their orders over a telephone call. Milgram also varied the distance between the confederate and participant by bringing the learner into the same room as the participant and ordering the participant to hold the learner’s hand down onto the electric shock plate.

  Milgram found that obedience rates decreased in both of his proximity variations.
• Outline research into variables affecting obedience.

  In Milgram’s location variation, Milgram changed the location of his obedience research from Yale University to a run-down office block.

  Milgram found that obedience rates decreased.
• Outline research into variables affecting obedience.


  In Bickman’s uniform study, passers-by on a street were ordered to perform tasks such as picking up litter by a confederate dressed in one of three outfits: a milkman’s uniform, a security guard’s uniform or a jacket and tie (no uniform).

  Bickman found that passers-by were most obedient to the person when wearing a security guard’s uniform and least obedient when they were wearing a jacket and tie (i.e. no uniform). 
• Evaluate research into variables affecting obedience: provided information as to why people obey.


  E.g. proximity as a variable affecting obedience could be explained by the agentic state explanation for obedience. This is because participants would have felt more responsibility when instructed to hold the learner's hand down onto the electric shock plate in contrast to when they were administering shocks to them out of sight in another room. As a result, they would have entered the autonomous state, hence explaining their disobedience.
• Evaluate research into variables affecting obedience: provided information as to why people obey.


  Location as a variable affecting obedience could be explained by the legitimacy of authority explanation for obedience. This is because, at Yale University, participants would have trusted the authority figure to exercise their authority appropriately as they have the expertise to do so. This legitimacy of authority would not have been present in a run-down office block and, because of this, participants would not have accepted that the researcher had the authority to tell them what to do.
• Evaluate research into variables affecting obedience: provided information as to why people obey. 


  Uniform as a variable affecting obedience can also be explained by the legitimacy of authority explanation for obedience. This is because the uniform of the security guard would have conveyed the legitimate authority of its wearer and so people would have been more obedient than when they were ordered to pick up litter by an individual in a jacket and tie.
• Evaluate research into variables affecting obedience: high level of control in Milgram's research. 


  Milgram altered one variable at a time (e.g. location) while keeping everything else the same (e.g. same voltages of shocks) to measure what effect it would have on obedience rates. This is a strength because it results in greater confidence when establishing cause and effect e.g. any change in obedience rates must be an effect of the change in location as this was the only thing that changed.
• Evaluate research into variables affecting obedience: nomothetic approach. 


  Some of the participants in Milgram's research never obeyed despite every participant experiencing the same amount of proximity, the experimenter wearing the same uniform (i.e. lab coat) and the study being conducted in the location of Yale University. This is a limitation because it suggests that these variables had little influence on some people's behaviour.
• Evaluate research into variables affecting obedience: nomothetic approach counter. 


  Research has shown that individual differences may also play an important role e.g. psychologists have proposed that some Individuals have an authoritarian personality where they believe in absolute obedience to authority figures. This would make them more likely to obey than others, and so is better able to explain the individual differences seen in the research.